


A Kind of Ghost

by thecutteralicia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Brothers, Cancer, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Kid Fic, Kid Mycroft, Kid Sherlock, Mostly Dialogue, Mycroft-centric, Pre-Canon, Siblings, Sickfic, gratuitous literary references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 17:29:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecutteralicia/pseuds/thecutteralicia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I am not sentimental," Sherlock insisted. </p><p>"That you are not, brother dear." </p><p>(For the kinkmeme prompt, "Mycroft had leukaemia as a child.")</p><p>This work has been translated into <a href="http://astronomytower.lofter.com/post/2839a7_a6bc6d">Chinese</a> by the lovely <b>areinal</b>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kind of Ghost

Mycroft knew very well what day it was.

He was content to let his parents think their avoidance of the subject had worked. To them, he feigned ignorance and acted as if the days passed quickly, almost beyond his notice. But the truth was that even at the worst of it - even when his mind was clouded in a dull medicinal fog - he still counted. The only calendar he had was in his head, and he liked to turn it over and examine the days and months. It was reassuring the way they folded neatly together; always the same, despite every calculation.

The charade was easy. After all, being confined upstairs meant he wasn't confronted with the holly strung in the front hall, or the electric lights blinking on the tree in the sitting room. Perhaps his parents thought reminders of the holiday would add to his misery. 

Perhaps they were right.

So Mycroft spent the twelfth Christmas Eve of his life in bed, finishing book four of Virgil's _Aeneid_. (The only benefit to interminable bedrest was that it allowed him to catch up on the Greek classics, a side effect not listed in those G.O.S.H. pamphlets his mother brought home). The small fraternal presence hovering in the doorway was proving a distraction, though.

"For heaven's sake, don't just lurk there," he finally said to it. "You're worse than the cat."

The presence hesitated. "Daddy said you were sleeping and not to disturb you."

"Clearly I am not, and close the door. You're letting in a draught from the hall."

Sherlock slammed the door with a flourish, then made a running launch onto the foot of his brother's bed, making the mattress bounce. "Happy Christmas!"

"So it is." Mycroft carefully marked his place and set the book aside. 

"Look what I got." Sherlock proudly held up a new Action Man, straight-backed and frozen in its green and gold zippered suit.

"Very good, that's what you asked for, isn't it?" Mycroft said. "Father Christmas must have put you on the nice list year, heaven knows why."

"There's no such thing as Santa Claus, _Mycroft._ "

Mycroft hid a smile. "Oh, I forgot. You know everything."

"He was supposed to come with a helicopter," Sherlock continued. "My Action Man doesn't have anything to fly. When will you open your presents? There are five of them under the tree. One's pajamas." He brightened. "I could open them all for you."

"Tomorrow, maybe. I'm sorry I missed the festivities. How was dinner?"

"Boring." That was Sherlock's current favorite word. "Daddy said the roast was overdone and Mummy smoked three cigarettes, right at the table."

"And Mrs. Morrison?"

Sherlock didn't answer, instead moving the toy's arm up and down, up and down. "He was supposed to come with a helicopter. He's a helicopter pilot."

"Well, maybe for your birthday."

Sherlock said nothing in reply, but kicked his bare feet off against the side of the bed while still twiddling with Action Man.

"How do you feel?" he suddenly asked.

Mycroft narrowed his eyes. "Why? You've never asked me that before."

Sherlock shrugged. "The grown-ups ask you all the time."

"I'm..." He was about to tell Sherlock the same thing he told the grown-ups all the time, that he was fine, but the words were leaden in his mouth.

"I'm...not well. Not at all, actually." It was startling to admit aloud, even to a pesky baby brother who couldn't possibly understand.

"Do you feel very rotten?" asked Sherlock.

"A bit," Mycroft admitted.

Sherlock stuck out his lower lip and looked down at the parade of Paddington Bears dancing across the hem of his pajama top. "But I wanted to sleep in your bed. It's warmer than mine."

"That's because I've warmed it."

After a moment, Sherlock added a deliberate theatrical sigh.

Mycroft pretended to hesitate. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't do any harm. Though you can't kick me in your sleep."

"I won't!" He carefully sat Action Man on the bedpost before scrambling over his brother's legs and flopping against his outstretched arm. Sherlock's toes were cold and he wiggled them underneath the blanket.

"Mycroft?" 

"Hmm?"

"I wish Brigitte had come to Christmas." 

Mycroft sighed. Brigitte was their mother's sister. She and her husband had been killed in an auto accident the previous summer. 

"She's dead, Sherlock. I told you. Dying means being gone forever. The person can't come back, not even for Christmas."

"I know that." Sherlock sounded cross. "I'm not an infant. I wish she wasn't dead, is all."

" _Nothing we can call our own but death,_ " Mycroft quoted aloud. He was also working his way through Shakespeare's _Henriad_. Sherlock ignored him. 

"Brigitte always gave me nice presents," he said, sounding wistful. "She'd never forget a helicopter." 

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Mycroft rolled his eyes. "And here I thought you were being sentimental." 

"You are!"

"It's not an insult, Sherlock. Well, sometimes it's used as one. But sentimental just means feeling fond or loving about something, or someone."

"I am not sentimental," Sherlock insisted.

"That you are not, brother dear." 

They lapsed into silence until Sherlock asked again, "Mycroft?"

"What?"

"Are you going to die?"

Mycroft took a deep breath. "Possibly." 

"Oh." Sherlock seemed to consider that. "Mycroft?"

"Hmm?"

"If you die, will you become a ghost?" 

"And where did you learn about such things?"

"In a book Mr. Alvarsson gave me."

"I haven't thought about it." But there was a smile in Mycroft's voice. "I doubt I have a say in the matter, if such things even exist. Why, would you like for me to be one?"

Sherlock pondered for a moment. "Ghosts are incorporal - "

"Incorporeal," Mycroft corrected.

" - incorporeal. They float around like air. So if you were a ghost, you could be around all the time and go with me everywhere, to school and things."

Mycroft said nothing.

"You don't go anywhere now, not like you used to," Sherlock added. "You're no fun. A ghost might be fun."

Mycroft rested his chin atop Sherlock's head. "Jacob Marley would disagree with you."

"But you shouldn't die if you can't become a ghost," Sherlock went on, "because I wouldn't like you to be gone forever and not come back, even though you are a bit stroppy and boring."

Mycroft smiled. "I'll take that into consideration."

Sherlock got so quiet for a moment that Mycroft wondered if he'd fallen asleep. Then he spoke again.

"Mycroft?"

"Sherlock."

"My birthday is in thirteen days."

"Yes."

"Please don't die before my birthday," Sherlock blurted out. "Mrs. Morrison promised she'd bake me a lemon cake and that's my favorite and she won't if she's all snuffly because you're dead."

"Why, you little stinker," Mycroft's chuckle was low and deep in his throat. "Just for that, I think I'll keel right over onto your precious birthday cake."

Sherlock gasped. "You wouldn't!"

"I might," Mycroft said. "Hmm, then again, I might decide to live. After all, you'll be turning what, sixteen? Sixty?"

"Six!"

"Ah," Mycroft pretended to be deep in thought. "That's awfully old. I suppose I'll have to give you a gift, too. What about some socks?"

"No!"

"What about a pipe?"

"No," Sherlock yawned and burrowed into Mycroft's side. "James Bond smokes cigarettes."

"James Bond is also in M16, and you're no secret agent. You will not smoke cigarettes, Sherlock."

"You can't tell me what to do."

"Oh, can't I? Go to sleep."

"I'm not tired." Sherlock yawned again. 

"Are you warm enough?"

"Yes," Sherlock mumbled. "But your feet are cold." 

He poked Sherlock's foot with his big toe in response. 

"Hmph."

"Go to sleep," Mycroft repeated.

Sherlock's eyes were closed, but after a moment he reached up to his shoulder and grabbed Mycroft's hand. 

"When you feel better, you can do lots of things with me, My," he mumbled. "We can go for a ride in a real helicopter, okay? I'll take you."

Mycroft squeezed his eyes shut.

"Okay," he finally whispered. But Sherlock was already asleep.

Mycroft placed his hand against his brother's chest and started counting. Twenty-seven days in hospital. Thirty-six days at home, in this room, in this bed. Seventy-five days since the cough that started it all.

Ninety-two beats of Sherlock's heart against the palm of his hand.

Mycroft waited another minute and started counting again.

He did not sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drastically modified and rewritten version of an unedited kinkmeme fill I wrote several months ago. In addition to aging up the characters by about a year, I found my original fill too sickly sweet, so I hope this one is a bit more in character. 
> 
> Title taken from a line of dialogue in Truman Capote's _In Cold Blood_. ("I've been listening to you, Wilma. All of you. Laughing. Having a good time. I'm missing out on everything...A little while, and even Kenyon will be grown up - a man. And how will he remember me? As a kind of ghost.") The Shakespeare quote is from Richard II.
> 
> BTW, G.O.S.H stands for Great Ormond Street Hospital, the London children's hospital where I imagine Mycroft being treated. And [here's](http://www.metropolistoys.co.uk/albumdet.asp?id=2011) the Action Man figure Sherlock got for Christmas, in case you were wondering.


End file.
